


Maybe Someday

by eluna



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexual Maxine "Max" Mayfield, F/F, Light Angst, Maxine "Max" Mayfield-centric, Minor Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, One-sided Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, POV Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Possibly Unrequited Love, Season/Series 03, Stranger Things 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 07:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20327170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eluna/pseuds/eluna
Summary: It was easy to be El’s friend, once El opened up and let her. Max was getting sick of always receiving the cold shoulder—first from Lucas and the boys when she first moved to town, next from El for the eight months following—and it’s been so much easier to just let the feuding melt away and have fun than it would have been to push the issue and demand to know why El seemed to hate Max for so long. And it’s been a lot of fun, being friends with El—showing her Max’s comics and giggling over themselves at the mall as El used her powers to mess with the girls who laughed at them. It almost makes Max think that they could—





	Maybe Someday

**Author's Note:**

> How weird is it that it took me this long to publish anything F/F on AO3? (Answer: very, very weird.)

Sometimes, Max really shoots herself in the foot with her decisions.

Like now, for instance, lying awake in the darkness of her bedroom with El snoring away hardly a foot away from her. Max lets her eyes drift open and focus on what she can make out of El’s blurry form—the rise and fall of her chest, the dusting of grown-out locks of hair over her cheek. El is as beautiful to her now as she was decked-out in punk-rocker makeup and grease the first time Max met her, and—

Max tries not to think about the first time she met El, the way El ignored her extended hand and brushed right past her without so much as a smile. El kept up the same treatment for the last eight months, only interacting with Max insofar as they belonged to the same party, laughing and talking for Max to see but never be a part of—until today, when El seized Max’s skateboard in her hands and said she wanted to talk. Max was expecting some kind of showdown, not what actually happened—for El to confide her problems with Mike and ask for some kind of advice, like an equal, like a _friend_.

It was easy to be El’s friend, once El opened up and let her. Max was getting sick of always receiving the cold shoulder—first from Lucas and the boys when she first moved to town, next from El for the eight months following—and it’s been so much easier to just let the feuding melt away and _have fun _than it would have been to push the issue and demand to know _why _El seemed to hate Max for so long. And it’s been a lot of fun, being friends with El—showing her Max’s comics and giggling over themselves at the mall as El used her powers to mess with the girls who laughed at them. It almost makes Max think that they could—

But El _just _dumped Mike today, she’s bound to still have strong feelings for him, and anyway, they’re probably getting back together as soon as Mike pulls his head out of his ass and explains himself to her. It makes Max feel a little sick, thinking about it. She only ever dreamed of friendship with El, let alone anything more, and it won’t do to get her hopes up now, not when El thinks Max’s only motivation in going to Starcourt and having a sleepover was to show El that there’s more to life than romance.

There _is _more to life than romance: Max stands by what she said. But part of what she meant is that she wants to _show _El what a balanced relationship looks like, as opposed to the obsessive, even codependent one that El shares with Mike—and that’s where Max has gotten herself into trouble, because she’s made El believe that Max’s friendship with her is all about expanding their lives _outside _of their romantic relationships.

It doesn’t mean that Max doesn’t love Lucas, or that she wants to hurt him (or Mike, for that matter). Max can’t deny, though, that she’s been attracted to El ever since Lucas first told Max about her, and that getting so close yet so far from the relationship that she wants with her is messing with Max’s head.

Maybe someday, Max tells herself as she watches El roll over to face the other way in her sleep, they’ll both be single, and Max can tell her how she feels; maybe El will like girls just as much as boys, will like _Max _just as much as _Mike_, and be willing to give it a go. Maybe someday.


End file.
